Tuesday, June 19, 2012

In a Dry and Weary Land


We watched.  And we waited.  We had been waiting for weeks and weeks.  And with each week our eyes strained harder.  Surely this will be the day.  You will ride in on the clouds and quench our dry land. 

The clouds grew darker, more promising as the day arose, and by noon we were certain Your presence was near.  But the wind blew You and the clouds on by, and our hearts once again sunk inside, weary from watching and waiting, setting our hopes on a cloud unseen.

Seven days have since passed and we’re parched evermore.  My mind tells me you were in those clouds that day, the day that now seems to have been our last hope, but my heart won’t quite follow the sound of that drum.  And though we’re living in the midst of a very dry and weary land, I can’t help but think the window to my soul paints a picture even bleaker.  But yet somehow I know, I KNOW- You are here.  In the midst of wonderings and questions and uncertainties of tomorrow, you are here.

In a matter of weeks I am downtrodden from watching and waiting for You to speak through this silent desert, and I can’t help but imagine what 400 years must have felt like.  The 400-year drought of silence.  The sound of a newborn baby who would grow up to be a prophet for His nation ceased.  And in those years, how did they feel?  Did they watch and wait diligently at first?  History proves over time they faded into self-religion.  Will we do the same?  Will we too miss the sound of Jesus’ coming as He pierces the silence with the very presence of God With Us? 

I don’t want to miss the sound of You.  I want to hear you loud and clear.  And I want to walk in Your ways, not some man-made way to life that replaces You because we believe Your seeming absence proves Your lack of compassion for your thirsty people.

I want You.  I want to soak in the riches of Your blessings, even if I do so in the midst of a dying harvest.   Is that the picture You’re painting?  As His second coming draws ever-near, are you screaming loud and clear that we don’t get it?  That we’re losing the harvest faster than our eyes can comprehend?  As we watch our corn curl further and further into itself with each passing day, are you brushing an image on your canvas creation that says this, THIS is the image of my supposed people.  THIS is what they look like as they say they love me, but choose daily to shrink ever farther away in the midst of a dry world that saps them of their energy to thrive and grow in Me?  And if this is Your message, what are we to do?  Every day as I drive past our fields, I see the inescapable end closing in, and I feel very helpless.  No amount of effort on my part could save this dying harvest.   Am I helpless in your picture as well? 

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.  I am not helpless.  I can stand firm.  I can refuse to shrivel underneath the heat of the day.  I can spread my arms wide open to embrace the Son that pounds down upon me.  And I can choose to keep hanging on.  For our hopes are on a cloud unseen, but You promised it won’t be unseen forever.  And on that day, when you ride in on the clouds, You WILL quench our dry land. 

So for now I wait.  And I hold on to the Hope I have in You.  For You are good, YOU ARE GOOD, when there’s nothing good in me.  And I know the riches of Your love will Always be enough, even when death surrounds and all seems a loss.  For You are life, and in Your time You will leads us out of this dry and thirsty land.  And on that day, beneath that cloud, we shall thirst no more.

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